Well, I can definitely say that the substructure is very very strange...

Back in Yu-Shans subsurface mazes, Charles was more-or-less wandering around at random; there were such a LOT of fascinating features you could see here! You could see the foundations of the architecture, and you could see the geomancy from the inside…

What he DIDN’T see was stairs up. Still, there had to be some somewhere, and he had sandwiches!

Ixcatli found the lack of stairs, signs, or directions more than a bit discouraging – and listening to this god-blooded child rattle on about architectural details, and underground manses, and possible relationships with the canal designs, and other useless arcana – in excruciating detail and without an apparent care in the world – was driving him quite mad! Perhaps it would have been better to have remained unconscious! (Well, OK – not really. But STILL).

Charles occasionally wondered why Ixcatli kept twitching his tentacles – but immediately forgot again in favor of surveying the architecture.

The damp, darkened, maintenance corridors – presumably hidden in the upper reaches of the adamant layer of underground Yu Shan – had notches every ten feet in the walls for light sources – but they didn’t seem to be needed; something was making the adamant faintly glow. It wasn’t up to the standard of a good reading lamp, but it was definitely something!

(Charles) “Oh neat! The archways here are designed to focus geomantic potentials upwards, creating an energy-focusing nexus… I think this is the deep underside of a quintessence fountain!”

It was indeed! He could see where the pipes of the stuff flowed into the jade of the basin. The patterning of the plaza was quite clear… as were the anti-tampering measures. It appeared that the fountains were warded against tapping devices, up to and including most artifact means – and the touch of gods who were not in charge of minding them, and – of course – creatures of darkness.

(Charles) “Not bad! It could use an additional set of wards here, and if you adjusted the rune-sequence you could increase the conversion efficiency by up to about ten percent! And it needs to have it’s effective high-frequency range greatly expanded, which is where most of the interstellar stuff comes in! The prayer-spectrum has changed a good deal since this was designed!”

(Ixcatli) “That’s nice…” (tentacle twitch)

Fortunately, Charles was not a god and was not warded away – so he cheerily spent a few moments fixing it!

(Ixcatli) “Um, young man, what are you doing?”

(Charles) “An upgrade! It should work just fine… It’s just no longer properly tuned to the prayers; the interstellar component is not being properly captured because the system was never designed for that!”

(Ixcatli) “Don’t you need a permit for that?”

(Charles, with some surprise) “But it’s not working right! Besides… I don’t think there’s any rule against unauthorized repairs by godblooded subcontractors! Nobody ever bothers much with rules for people like me! And we’re still in the abandoned districts anyway! Who will notice?”

Ixcatli was sharper than the people that Charles usually pulled the “two unrelated truths” stunt on though!

(Ixcatli) “What do you mean by that?”

(Charles) “By what?”

(Ixcatli) “By ‘people like you’… not that I’m complaining, you saved me from that deiphage!”

(Charles) “Oh well, that’s sort of a secret really – but it’s OK! It’s just that no one ever bothered with rules for people like me… They didn’t think it was necessary!… There! All fixed!”

It was flowing a lot better now. How that was affecting the Quintessence… well, it was harder to tell. He’d have to look at the top! Still, even if it was only properly transmuting a minor part of the interstellar prayers it should increase things a good bit!

(Charles) “Well it SHOULD be properly processing interstellar prayers now! Or at least what gets through…”

(Ixcatli) “You are quite a chatterer. Is there a reason for it?”

(Charles, with some disappointment) “But… don’t you like geomancy and manses and fixing things?”

(Ixcatli) “It’s… not a subject that resonates with me. Now squid…”

The walk through the next stretch of identical-looking tunnels involved more information on extraterrestrial squid than Charles had ever dreamed existed.

Then there were three tunnel branches, all of which looked the same. They might be eaten by a Grue!

Or, given that the place was illuminated, perhaps by Scarab Guardians.

Sadly, all was silent. None of the passages had air blowing, or the sounds of people searching or an exit sign, or any real clue whatsoever.

(Charles, with some disappointment) “Do you have any preferences?”

Ixcatli closed his eyes, extend a tentacle, and selected at random. His suckers pointed towards the rightmost corridor on the far end of the room.

They traveled onwards. At first, it remained damp and dark, and Ixcatli continued to expound on the virtues of his particular squid species. He was from a waterworld, so there were a LOT of squids there. Still, while Ixcatli was talking – and Charles continued to actually listen, which was a pleasant surprise for Ixcatli – Charles noticed that there was a subtle upwards incline to this tunnel.

(Charles) “Hm. Going up!”

Ixcatli actually stopped talking for a moment.

(Ixcatli) “Oh, good!”

Then he continued with his explanation of squid camouflage. Still, as they continued upwards it got less damp – and the walls got brighter. Oddly enough, Charles could also hear scratching noises from above – at least when Ixcatli took a breath.

(Charles) “Hey, I think we’re coming near the surface!”

(Ixcatli) “Wonderful! I remember little of my time as a… drone… but I spent most of it unable to see the dome. I wonder who’s ahead right now?”

(Charles) “Oh, it’s usually Sol Invictus!”

(Ixcatli) “But of course… now I’m a Luna bettor myself, but that kind of power is hard to hold the lead against . . .”

By now the place was quite shiny, there were engravings on the walls – and up ahead there was a lit chamber.

(Charles) “I haven’t run into most of them yet, so I can’t really say! It may not be much longer though, at least for some of them…”

(Ixcatli) “You seriously think there’s a chance of you meeting them? Well, you DID help me escape a chamber warded by potent sorcery…”

How in Oblivion had the child DONE that anyway? It had been mortal thaumaturgy – but on such a scale!

(Charles) “Well maybe! You never know what will grab their attention!”

He was busy studying the engravings… There seemed to be some sort of symbolic war going on there!

Art wasn’t really Ixcatli’s thing, but he took an interest as well. At least it wasn’t more blank walls or arcane details of geomancy!

The engravings appeared to be a series of organic whorls and loops, closely resembling vines and leaves. Those parts… twitched, much like a loose vine would twitch in a strong breeze. They seemed to be curving around and overwhelming geometric shapes. Huh! Nature and mechanism?

(Ixcatli) “I’m… not much for art symbolism. Some of the other gods looked down on me for it, but they couldn’t even swim! (He put a tentacle to his beak). “Gaia against Autocththon? I do know that much about the Primordials.”

(Charles) “Hm. Are the mechanisms of Yu-Shan breaking down because Gaia has been here for eons and Autochthon has not been?”

(Ixcatli) “An interesting theory… I don’t know.”

(Charles) “Still, I don’t think it’s writing… There doesn’t seem to be much to translate about it!”

(Ixcatli) “I don’t think so either. Certainly not Old Realm!”

Charles tried a bit of tinkering – touching various bits and trying to shift some symbols around – but while the organic part quivered and felt warm beneath his fingers the symbols didn’t move and were cold to the touch. Ixcatli got similar results with his suckers… Bother! There was so much geomancy and odd energies running about that even Charles couldn’t get much on something as subtle as a few tiny sensation effects without a lot more effort than he really had time for…

He took some pictures and they continued on towards the illuminated chamber – following the flow of the engravings.

There they found a door of clear adamant, with a bar of clear adamant across it on the inside, and a bunch of wards, blocking their way. The room beyond appeared to contain a map – apparently of the entire celestial city – engraved into the wall. The Old Realm print was far too small to read from this distance though, although the map itself glowed with a pale blue light. The engravings continued into the room itself; the map seemed to be a focus for them.

Oh, there was a table, and a couple of chairs, and some minor bits and pieces of office equipment in the room as well – but that really wasn’t important. The scratching was also a bit louder – but they weren’t paying much attention to THAT at the moment.

The wards were against gods, mortals, and Exalted not carrying a specific token. The one against mortals appeared to be the newest…

Charles was no normal thaumaturgist. A keyed ward necessarily contained an impression of the key; if you were skilled enough to examine the structure of the ward and work backwards… He still wasn’t sure what wards would affect him, but now was not the time for testing! Wait, an expertly crafted orb of mundane nephrite containing… ten peach pits? Well, OK… Was there an association with the peaches of immortality perhaps? It seemed that mundane peach pits would do well enough…

Charles reached into his pack – and quietly had some of his associates ship him some peach pits and nephrite to rapid-craft into an appropriate key. A barred and locked door wouldn’t be much of an issue once the ward would let him through! Thaumaturgy was wonderfully versatile that way. Evidently this wasn’t intended to keep HIM out. (For that all they’d need to do would be to specify the still-beating heart of a puppy or something similar).

Rapidly crafting a key – and telekinetically lifting the bar – was really no trouble at all.

The room appeared to be a simple monitoring station. There was a transcendent cooling receptacle (a divinely-overblown refrigerator), the table, four chairs, some minor bits and pieces of office equipment – and the map. The organic engravings surrounding the map didn’t just twitch; they writhed – and they seemed to emanate from the borders of Yu-Shan itself. The geometric figures they enveloped were barely visible.

Squares seemed to be connected with what would be the Fulgent Administrative District. Circles with the Five Spheres Residential District. Triangles with the Pangaean Bureaucratic District. Diamonds with the Lunargent Ecological Protectorate – and Pentagons with the Central Metropolitan Zone. The pentagons seemed to have the least entwining, but the others were fairly evenly divided in terms of trouble.

Now that he was closer up, he could also make out the map text. Other than district names and such there was a numeric indicator in the upper right corner… It read 99/100. That was kind of ominous somehow, even if it could mean 99% of nominal function!… Too bad there was no “Help” button!

Meanwhile, Ixcatli was rooting about in the refrigerator.

Hm… He’d heard a little about these places. Stations like this were fairly common throughout Yu-Shan for geomantic observation; they were pretty vital to studying the spread of the empty districts. Ones in settled regions of Yu-Shan were usually manned at all times. In empty quarters, on the other hand… They were usually underground because that’s where you got the best geomantic analysis. Ah! It was a touch interface!

Unfortunately, while he could zoom in and look at all kinds of numbers and things in the immediate area – where this station was focused on monitoring – he didn’t know enough about the local area to match up any of the symbols or readouts with anything. Still, touching various symbols got him different readings… Touching a pure-looking pentagon lit up the Central Metropolitan Zone; it was mostly white, with a few clear spots. The indicator changed to 19*/20.

Well, empty quarters were unheard of there, at least on the surface. Higher was better, and living there… you wanted everyone to know it.

He REALLY hoped that those were not failure percentages – but there was just too much information, and not enough actual correlations, to sort things out. He needed someone who’d trained on the system.

Probably not failures though, unless the Celestial coverups were even worse than he’d heard. He’d just have to ask someone!

Although, annoyingly enough, the room didn’t have any exits except back the way they’d come in. On the other hand, the scratching was still approaching, and was now coming from the left and above.

(Charles, extending a simple probe-spell) “Hello! Who’s scratching?”

It looked a small group of lesser deiphages tunneling towards them – and they’d just doubled up on their efforts. Ixcatli was backing away from the left wall.

(Charles, cheerfully) “Well, that works! They must have come down from the outside! They can show us the way out if I can cure them!”

(Ixcatli) “Well, let me help you . . . I’m not much of a fighter, but I owe you that.”

(Charles) “Oh not to worry! Wards for you, and wards for me, and a privacy ward and a few others…”

He put up the anti-deiphagy one around the deiphages and the area as they were breaking through.

(Charles) “And I have tea and sandwiches!’”

One of the deiphages – a former rock elemental – turned his fists to steel to finish smashing through the wall, and the pack came pouring through – but as the energies of the ward washed over them, they slowed., and eddied against the secondary wards – and, when they’d snapped out of it a few minutes later, Ixcatli held up a can he’d found.

(Ixcatli) “Does anyone want some ambrosial ambrosia? I found it in the transcendent cooling receptacle.”

(Humanoid God) “How can you open that with tentacles?”

(Ixcatli, shrugging) “Like this.” (He did so, and poured drinks)

Charles briefly wondered about “Transcendent Tentacles of Utility” – but it was much more interesting that the map had shown the “wildness” converging on this location when the deiphages had been converging… The numeric indicator had shown 20*/20 too; and he and Ixcatli had been shielded… If that was what it indicated… then there were an awful lot of gods lost to deiphagy and hiding out – or lost and showing no signs and still functioning… As high as 99%, or had that been purely local?

(Charles) “How’s everybody feeling? I will need a record of your domains for the reconstruction!”

(Charles) “Oh, I suspect that you were mostly out of work, yes? I’ve never heard of probabilistic diamonds, so they might well be all gone.”

He kept an eye on the map. If he was about to be assaulted by endless waves of deiphages he wanted to know about it. On the other hand, the Central Metropolitan Zone was the only district of Yu-Shan that wasn’t showing 20*/20 on its numeric indicator. All the districts except it were mostly clear; but it was worst – or perhaps best – around the outer walls… If there were more deiphages coming, the map didn’t show it. Being an empty quarter, the area showed as clear on the map. He could see where the walls were; the borders glowed a darker shade of blue than the borders where the districts met the Central Metropolitan Zone. The areas immediately next to them were completely clear.

Wait, that meant that the empty districts… were closer to 70% of Yu-Shan than 40%. No wonder things were running downhill so fast! That couldn’t possible be far from critical failure! No wonder the monitoring stations were being so closely warded these days! If that news got out… there would be calls to evacuate the Celestial City! Even HE couldn’t readily do that! Even now, Yu-Shan was a lot bigger than he was!

The “fix Yu-Shan” project had suddenly gotten a lot more urgent – unless, perhaps, it was showing that someone – someone other than himself anyway – was meddling with the geomancy of Yu-Shan on a massive scale?

They were indeed all out of work; so Charles got a list of domains for restoring such as smashing probabilistic diamonds, a lake that got eaten by an unshaped, a forest burned in an extraterrestrial military battle two hundred years ago, and a computer peripheral that was no longer made.

(Charles) “Shall we go then? It’s kind of cramped down here!”

The “Yes!” vote was pretty much universal.

(Charles) “Back to the surface then!”

There was still a ways to go, but Charles could feel the familiar impression of the empty quarters up ahead: silence, an odd chill, and the occasional lonely wind blowing.

(Hezras) “Uhm… young man, wouldn’t you rather have me up front?”

(Charles) “Not a worry!”

(Hezras) “If you say so…”

(Charles) “And you might get hurt or something!”

(Hezras) “Uh, sure…”

Well, it was no flint off his carapace if the silly mortal boy wanted to get eaten… although the child certainly seemed fabulously overconfident for what he was!

Up ahead, there were deiphages pouring out of a side-passage. The gods behind him seemed torn between intervening and letting him go ahead… He turned on his basic ghosting charm to so as to be ready to dodge if necessary! It looked like… there were about twenty-five, oddly coordinated in movement. Instead of slavering and clawing, they were marching!

(Charles) “Allo! I take it that somebody dominant is in charge?”

(Female voice from the back) “And I take it you’re responsible for those gods going off my senses? (Sigh…) well, there’ll be more.”

A goddess rose out of the crowd. The robes were quite similar to the ones Ixcatli was wearing right now; ichor black. She was humanoid in appearance, other than the watery hair.

(Goddess) “Wow. And here I thought he’d taken too much of the wine.”

Well, she wasn’t anybody that Charles knew! Her eyes were definitely like Ixcatli’s were before he was freed; not blank, but glistening with intelligence. Her posture was far more imperious than a god of her apparent rank’s should be.

(Charles) “I’m Charles! What do you like to be called?”

(Eighty-Six Orchid) “Well, most people call me “RUN!” or “GHUL!” or “SIEGE!” I think you’ll be wanting an actual name, though… it’s Eighty-Six Orchid. I can tell you that much.”

(Orchid, to one of the other deiphages who had started drooling.) “HEY! Stand down. This might be worth something.”

(Charles) “Well it’s nice to meet you! Could you tell me what you want? We might be able to compromise in the interests of sorting things out!”

(Orchid) “Ehh… you mean me, or us in general?”

(Charles) “Oh, either or both!”

(Orchid) “Okay… me. I became this about, oh, a while ago. Two, three millennia? Anyway, the others explained what was up. That’s what I CAN’T tell you yet. What I’m after is employment that the godsdamned Bureaucracy can’t get off its rear end and find for me.”

(Charles) “Oh! Well, I’m working on that now… What did you used to be in charge of?”

(Orchid) “Cixhatlan dance. That was an empire of worlds on the edge of shaped space.” (She frowned). “I almost had dance dominated on them, too. Should have seen the look on my backer’s face.”

(Charles) “What happened to them? Conqured or something?”

(Orchid) “Yep. Tarvial got them.”

He could hear her teeth grinding! Tarvail… Oh yes, the place with all the defenses against the Wyld! It must have conquered this “Cixhatlan” place!

(Charles) “That might be a little harder than most, but I’ll work on it!”

(Orchid) “Then that damn Bright-Foot Nakita muscled in on my worshippers, and of course she had dozens of worlds backing her even then. Any gods from Tarvial here?”

He could see a hungry look in her eyes – and Ixcatli was trying hard to be inconspicuous.

(Charles) “I’m not sure that’s relevant! Anyway… so something is going on in the borderlands; there weren’t supposed to be many gods governing those. More things to fix and people to cure!”

Orchid had been peering at the child. For someone who was apparently just a God-Blood he seemed incredibly overconfident – to the point where he shouldn’t have survived an hour without protection! On the other hand, as a deiphage, her essence-senses were very good indeed – and if you looked beyond the surface… there was unbelievably amounts of power there, buried deep inside…

(Orchid) “Okay, so when you want to cure the deiphages, I assume that means all of us, right?”

(Charles) “Well, yes, that would be all of you – unless some just don’t want to be cured!”

(Orchid, waving a hand at the lesser deiphages) “If you could heal these guys, that’d be great. The ones like me are another story. Oh yeah, and we’d need another means of defense.”

(Charles) “Uhm… Defense against what? I can cure them easily enough!”

(Orchid) “The Celestial Bureaucracy-especially the lions. I would say Sidereals too, but we both know how busy they are.”

(Charles) “Wait, are they harassing you because you’re out of work? That’s just mean!”

(Charles, rummaging in his pack) “Oh! I’ve got some around here… (he got out a set of the commando armor) Here we are!”

(Orchid, gaping) “Wait, what the Empyrean One!? You have artifact armor in your pack?”

The other gods – deiphage and otherwise – were also quite surprised.

(Charles) “Uhm… Why not? It’s really quite light!”

(Orchid) “Guh… never mind.”

She had one of her deiphages, who did appear to be a god of a defunct armor style, check it over – and found his report a little hard to believe. The child was not only hauling around artifact armor, but he was hauling around high-end disguised artifact armor with a multitude of different functions – and was prepared to GIVE IT AWAY?!.

(Orchid) “Okay, it’s good. I’ll take it. Now, if you’ll drop the wards that are messing with the geomancy in that monitoring station, we can talk there. I’ll leave my people outside.”

There was an earlier request for this, and – now that I finally have a little time for writing and putting things up again – it’s time to start this particular article-series…

d20… covers a lot of settings. The realm of dream? Been there. Virtual reality setting? Done that. High Fantasy? Please! That’s where it all started! Low Fantasy? Of course! Cyberpunk? Sure! Hard Sci-Fi or Historical? Rare, but it HAS been done. Homicidal Pixie-Unicorn Rampage versus H.G. Wells Martian Invaders? Well… OK, let me get out the Fey supplement and the War of the Worlds supplement…

And that’s the problem. Can you think of any creature – no matter how silly, “unbalanced”, lacking in a proper ecological role, and inconsistent – that could NOT make an appearance in a dream? Or in virtual reality? Or in a world with enough magic or sufficiently alien laws of nature?

That’s a rhetorical question because no, of course you can’t. If you can imagine it, it can appear in all those places – and is a perfectly valid d20 monster.

It may be one that makes no sense in a particular setting – but the SRD is full of those already. If a given setting doesn’t have elemental planes, or has hard-science biology, you aren’t going to have any use for Elementals or (Especially!) Elemental half-breeds. Low-magic world? You’ll be skipping dragons. No absolute alignments? Most outer-planar creatures are out – or at least will need plenty of revising.

Where do monsters come from?

They spawn from children’s dreams or from concentrations of magical or psychic energy, they are freakish mutants, they are created by wizards, dread gods curse the world with their presence, technicians make them in laboratories, mad scientists and alchemists build them from corpses, prayers for vengeance are answered with horrors, they arise from stillness and silence due to the Tao of creation, they are cursed people, they are animals risen above their station, they are nanotechnological horrors, they come from the future, or the past, or from alien realms,. and they are councilors and guardians.

How do monsters survive?

They consume flesh, or life force, or draw on elemental energy, or are incarnations of ideas and need nothing save minds to think of them, or embody spiritual principles, or survive on magic, or have internal nuclear reactors, or feed on souls (whatever that means in a setting), or are driven by sheer will, or are infused with positive or negative energy, or photosynthesize, or run on bolts of lightning, or divine power, or infernal power, or… well, it really doesn’t matter. How a monster survives – or reproduces, or what kind of society it has, or it’s family organization, or what it looks like – really doesn’t matter. All of that is simply a set of hooks for world-building, or bringing the monster into a scenario – and if you’re designing your own monster, you can find an excuse for it anyway. It’s not like you have biological, ecological, or even physical facts to restrain you.

Like it or not, what makes a suitable, “reasonable”, or even barely-usable monster varies with each setting – and with each game masters interpretation of that setting.

How do you create and modify monsters?

That depends on the setting. You’re in the Realms of Dream? You may be able to produce Godzilla with a Lucid Dreaming check and the expenditure of a little psychic energy. In a realm of High Fantasy? Perhaps an Alchemical Laboratory to create a mighty homunculus is in order – or perhaps, for swifter and less-controllable results, summoning a primal malevolent force and forcing it into a cage of form woven from your own imagination and strength of will will do better (although, if you lose control, it will become another unique terror haunting the land). A low-magic world? You may have to breed your beasts for generations to make much of a change at all. A technological world? A genetic engineering and cloning facility with a staff may be your only hope.

The only real “rules” here are some vague metagame principles.

Your monster should fit into the world background – even if it’s from another plane, there need to be “other planes” mentioned before it shows up.

It should present an interesting, but solveable, problem for the players – whether that problem is tactical, philosophical, moral, or whatever. After all, we don’t want them bored, completely frustrated, or giving up in disgust. We’re playing this game for fun.

It’s probably best to hold down the pop-culture references, puns, and gaming jokes. They tend to disrupt the actual play of the game – no matter how much laughter them may produce at the moment.

If the creature can reproduce, as opposed to being a unique creation or summoning, there should be a reason it hasn’t taken over the world if it’s powerful enough to worry about that.

It’s usually a bad idea to give it one obscure critical weak point and make it otherwise quite invulnerable. Not only does this make for one-use creatures (next time they’ll know!), but it’s quite likely to result in complete frustration. Players almost never do the things that you thought they were going to do.

It’s usually a bad idea to leave some of the player characters with nothing to do during an encounter with the creature. It’s all too likely that – the day they run into the creature that’s utterly immune to magic and conjured things in a white-box setting – that all the combat-specialists will be unavailable – and even if you don’t get that worst-case scenario, you’re still leaving half the table bored.

Sadly, none of that is much help when Mandrake the Magician wants to create a guardian-beast for his laboratory and mystic sanctum. For that we need a monster-designing system for player characters.

Fortunately, In Eclipse, I have one handy – and the next article will start getting into the mechanics of that.

Here we have an a small package for personal relic creation designed for a character who’s own powers backlash against him, even when channeled through a focus, and thus cause him various disadvantages.

This isn’t the most efficient possible way of building such relics – for starters, you could simply the abilities purchased for the Relics (“causes this troublesome side effect, etc) and squeeze out a few more character points worth of abilities – but it suits the character conception well. It’s not that he’s accepting drawbacks to squeeze out more abilities, it’s that he possesses a lot of uncontrolled power and cannot prevent it from backlashing against him.

Runecrafting Package:

Create Relic, Specialized and Corrupted/only usable to make personal relics, only usable with points from Enthusiast, and all relics carry a disadvantage – although this does help reduce their cost (2 CP)

Double Enthusiast with Adaption, Specialized and Corrupted for 1.5x effect (provides three character points to make relics with) and half cost/ points from Enthusiast are only usable to make Relics (4 CP).

Eye of Witchery (1 CP Relic):

Used as a gazing-stone to help focus his unruly (Witchcraft I) psychic talents, this simple piece of iridescent quartz now acts as a focus and channel for the user’s mental energies – turning psychic potential into active, if often undependable, powers.

Disadvantage: Unluck. Sadly, while creating the Eye has stopped the original poltergeist, random illusion, and fear aura effects that troubled the character, it has not yet stopped his powers from pestering him entirely (-3 CP).

The Adamant Will, Specialized for half cost/only to resist pain and external control, not to conceal things.

The Eye of Shadows, Specialized for Increased Effect (no cost to use) / sometimes activates on it’s own, picking up random images and strongly emotional thoughts – usually people’s negative opinions of him and shared flashes of pain, anger, and despair. The character can read psychic impressions by touch, and may attempt a will save versus this power to attempt to focus it on someone – who also gets a save.

Glamour. For a wonder, this works normally – although, of course, deception and manipulation does fit teh characters demonic ancestry.

Witchfire, Specialized for Increased (Double) Effect/destructive aspects only, is highly painful to use since it draws on his own inner flame. This also means that – under sufficient pressure – the characters flame-based powers will sometimes “leak” a bit in awkward ways.

Witchsight: the fourth, and final, item which works normally.

Thaumaturgists Wand (1 CP Relic):

A ritualists wand has minor magical properties, but it’s more or less just a focus for concentration – and for that, one that you craft yourself will do nicely. This character made one for the classes in basic magic that he was given when it became obvious that he had a gift. Now that it’s infused with greater powers it’s far more useful…

Disadvantage: Insane. The user is unreasonable about what he or she is actually responsible for, and tends to assume that he or she is bears some fault for everything that goes wrong (-3 CP – and a perfect adventure hook).

Provides:

Rite of Chi with +2 Bonus Uses, Specialized and Corrupted/ can only be used to recharge any one pool once per day, takes at least ten minutes, a complex diagram drawn on the ground, and some minor props (candles, salt, and incense). Sadly, this will not work on externally based magic – such as the spirit favors the character mostly relies on to produce controllable effects (3 CP).

Adaption on Enthusiast, Specialized and Corrupted/only for swapping Relics around, only usable once per week (1 CP).

Ritual Magic, Specialized and Corrupted/only to perform summoning rituals of the Ars Geotia and Vestiges (2 CP). Sadly, while the character is fairly skilled for level one, he’s nowhere near good enough to bind major entities with his Spellcraft of Knowledge/Arcana skills; he’ll have to scrape up a pile of bonuses to do much of anything much here.

OK, now that little toy can help in several very specialized ways – but can also lead him into all kinds of trouble. More plot hooks.

Sigil of Scholarship (1 CP Relic):

This small, cheap, medallion is a souvenir – an early “award” for doing so well in his classes. It is, of course, just a trinket – something the teacher had handy to “award” to a clever nine year old – but it means something to him.

Disadvantage: Compulsive. While the character bears this relic he feels compelled to analyze everything and theorize at length, passing those theories on to his companions (-3 CP). (Not that he might not do this anyway, but this means that he never stops…).

All right. Now that reality is no longer beating me over the head with a hammer, it’s time to try to get back on track, starting with a Martial Art for Eclipse d20.

Tlantli Ejecatl (Fang of the Wind) (Dex).

Stillness is Death.

Always in motion, Strike and Retreat.

Linger Not within a Foe’s Reach.

The Patterns run Deep, Instinctive.

Before Weapons, Before Armor, Talons Were.

The Ancient Dance, to Rip and Tear and Leap Back.

To Flow like Water before the Storm

Claws like a Cutting Wind

Stillness is Death.

Tlantli Ejecatl isn’t a sophisticated art. You move in, you strike, you move out. You flow smoothly, relying on evasiveness, flexibility, and speed to avoid your opponents strikes, and on open-hand slashing and gouging for your own offense. You focus on hurting opponents enough to take them down if they’re weak or to dissuade them from coming after you if they’re strong. You go for the cheap shot.

You train in Survival, in Athletics*, in Acrobatics, and perhaps in other fields – the better to survive. That is, after all, what the Martial Arts are all about.

* This art is set up for a campaign using a variant – more compact – skills list, rather like the Pathfinder list. Feel free to substitute.

Requires: Natural Weapons/Claws, at least +1 BAB Specializing in Claws, Movement Rate of 40’+ OR having spent at least two weeks living as a hunting creature with claws or talons.

If you want to go toe-to-toe with some monstrosity, or compliment your already-juggernaut like build, this really isn’t the martial art for you; there are plenty of better ways to build that.Tlantli Ejecatl (and similar arts) are best used by characters who don’t stress physical combat – but who can boost their movement rate if necessary to dart in and out and continue making a difference when short of other options.

The “Demons” of medieval tomes were mostly the creation of fevered would -be demonologists and “scholars”. While they might be loosely based on a few genuine mythological fragments, those tattered threads are pretty thoroughly lost in a sea of wild conjecture. For our purposes this is good; it provides a lot of room for turning them into creatures that can play an interesting role in various games.

Part One included Andromalius (the Judge), Beleth (the Berserker), and Bifrons (the psychopomp). To continue with part II, we have…

MALTHUS (Mal-Thus) The Earl Of Slaughter, Armorer Of The Abyss.

Favored Form: A slim, languid, effeminate fop, carrying a rapier, dripping with gems and jewelry, and wearing exquisite silken clothing – often a near-parody of a high-ranking officers military uniform. He takes care never to appear before a given individual twice in the same outfit. Some people call his outfits and appearance “ridiculous”. HE calls them “bait”.

Major Powers: Grandmaster Psionic (Disruption and Vamparism), Powershaping (Conjuration and Battle Magic), Master Strategist, Tactician, and Military Engineer. Despite his utter brilliance as a general, putting Malthus in charge of a military force somehow always results in a very high casualty rate (most infamously, the legendary “morning calisthenics massacre”)- but he does get things done. If it’s needed he will conjure up his own troops, fortifications, and arsenals, but he prefers not to waste his time and genius on matters of simple logistics.

Sacrifices: Malthus prefers human sacrifices, dying violently and in pain. He will quite cheerfully collect his own sacrifices if the summoner doesn’t get them ready for him – although he quite willing to count casualties among any troops placed under his command as sacrifices. Luckily, he can be somewhat placated (at enormous expense and far less effectively) with an assortment of new outfits and various luxuries – gems, silks, fine wines, and the best of foods.

Ritual: Summoning Malthus requires setting up a magical circle – and a substantial lump of opium to be burned as incense.

Basic Nature: Malthus is a master general, and he knows it very well. He will want to take charge, snap orders at all and sundry, and lay around languidly and be waited on. Unlike many of the other creatures of the Ars Goetia, Malthus has embraced the darkness, simply because it gives him more chances to exercise his supreme skills in the arts of war and attracts great heroes to meet in battle. He does not see his troops – or his opponents – as people, but as pawns.

Combat Skill: Malthus is insanely dangerous in battle. He has enormous personal strength, as well as being very, very, skilled with virtually all weapons. He will, however, normally spare noncombatants; children can grow up to be worthy opponents, and older noncombatants can produce and care for more children – giving Malthus more people to kill or to lead into battle to die demonstrating his supreme brilliance later on.

OROBAS (Or’-O-Bas) “The Prince Of Steeds”

Favored Form : Orabas most often appears as a powerful black stallion with a crimson (or actively flaming) mane and tail, but sometimes appears in the form of other steeds – although always in a similar color scheme. He speaks in the inhuman voice of whatever creature he appears to be. Regardless of his form, he will be equipped for war, with silver barding and tack – although he wears no bridle.

Ritual : A complex summoning circle. Orobas is of little use unless bound, a rite that requires a silver bridle and several minutes. It also requires providing Orobas with the summoners true name and reason for calling him forth – information that Orobas will freely share with any other summoner.

Basic Nature : Once bound, Orobas is a faithful retainer and will do his best to serve and obey the summoner and to answer his or her questions – giving him something of a reputation as an oracle. While Orabus is a most superior mount, keeping him bound will gradually drain the summoners vitality – inflicting (1D6) points of damage each day which can only be regained via rest and time, and not at all while Orabas is kept bound. Orabus views his office and purpose as to be a faithful retainer of whoever his current “master” is – a powerful steed and wise advisor. He does not feel that it is the business of a war-steed to question it’s master – and so turns a complete blind eye to the summoners moral status, and to the nature of the deeds he is called on to assist (no doubt the reason for his current status). Orabas might carry a heroic master through storm, flood, and the very fires of hell to rescue a single child – while for another he would crush a dozen beneath his blood-soaked hooves. As a part of his service he will hold a master’s secrets in absolute security – unless asked about them by another master, in which case that aspect of himself will cheerfully tell it’s master whatever he wants to know.

Combat Skill : He’s a war-steed, and – within that basic limitation – is extraordinarily competent.

STOLAS (Sto-Las”) “The Prince Of Carrion Crows, Bard of Chaos”

Favored Form : A huge raven with silver talons and red-golden eyes. Stolas “prefers” to speak in riddles, snatches of song, and doggerel nonsense. He often sends a minor aspect of himself to answer a summons, instead of coming in person. Such raven-familiars can grant a summoner various minor powers – usually translation or very minor powershaping abilities (as always, in a particular field or fields).

Major Powers : A master Spy and Thief, Stolas also possesses Powershaping (Air, Sound, and Illusion), and possesses the ability to speak and read all languages, a talent he may share with his summoner if he desires. Stolas is a notable musician – and may be a true master. He can produce a wide variety of bardic effects.

Sacrifices : Stolas favors original music, elder texts, weird snippets of knowledge, and concerts. What he finds acceptable seems to be a matter of whim. The summoner usually needs to negotiate.

Ritual : An elaborate circle, incense, and a full set of ceremonial gear is needed to summon Stolas – unless the summoner is capable of performing the far faster Song Of Summoning on woodwinds or harp. Stolas will teach a summoner the song on request, but a proper performance requires considerable skill and personal tutoring from Stolas; books, recordings, and similar methods are not sufficient to learn the subtle personalization that makes it work. He’ll also teach summoners about music and herbs on request.

Basic Nature : Stolas is a rogue, a trickster, and quite unreliable… Everything he does should be taken with a grain (several grains?) of salt. Even when bound to a summoner, he cannot be prevented from dragging everyone in the vicinity into baroque entanglements, twisting answers to questions that do not involve music or herbs, and generally making mischief.

Combat Skill : Stolas’s talons apparently possess some curious venomous or disruptive property – making them unexpectedly dangerous to both living beings and magical constructs.

Today’s request is a character loosely styled after Jason Blood / Etrigan (DC Comics) or Naruto (Anime) – a youngster who’s had a mighty demonic force that some magician couldn’t handle or kill directly imprisoned in his or her body, so that it will die when he or she does. That provides the character with some minor special powers – and, when the character is seriously injured or otherwise distracted, the dark power within will emerge to save it’s own life by striking out at the characters enemies.

Now this is indeed a rather neat, if not especially original, twist – as witness it being the basis for various superheroes and anime characters – but it leaves open a lot of questions.

The original binder was ruthless enough to do this to a kid. If he or she wanted to be rid of the demon, why not then kill the infant? Every moment the child lives it is a threat to those around him or her – and to the binder. Even for a “good” character this is pretty much a no-brainer – unless, perhaps, the binder has some goody-goody target he or she wishes to drop a time bomb on (although, to be fair, in that case a timed-release effect would be a LOT better).

If the binding is inescapable and moments of freedom restrained and short, then why is the entity prolonging it’s misery?

If the times of freedom can be prolonged, what was the point in the first place? A jail with a unlocked revolving door and an awkward kid for a guard isn’t much of a prison.

If the binding is escapable, why doesn’t the entity keep the kids body injured enough to maintain control and do what-it-is it needs to to escape permanently?

If the force is irredeemably hostile, why not take times of freedom as a chance to go on the rampage, avenge itself on humanity, and slaughter everyone in the vicinity? This character is putting the lives of everyone in the area at risk every time they get into a fight – or use the stairs, or step out in the street, or otherwise might be injured. Even if you can restrain the creature enough to keep it from massacring your friends, the world is full of innocents ready to be victims. There’s a reason why so many werewolf movies wind up with a dead werewolf.

If the entity bound within isn’t far more powerful than the characters, what’s the point? It’s like having a bad-tempered dog that occasionally jumps out at people if you don’t hang onto the leash. This is an even worse problem in d20, where the player characters start weak, and grow rapidly – and where there are plenty of powerful NPC’s about. Your entity needs to be so potent that epic-level NPC’s couldn’t handle it – yet you don’t want to hopelessly overshadow the other characters while they’re first level.

D20 worlds are full of rampaging monsters; if this works, why isn’t the world overrun with kids (and adults) with demons bound into them? For that matter, why wasn’t it done centuries ago, leaving the monsters long gone?

Now, if we gloss over problems like those what we wind up with is some mighty force that… intervenes whenever the character is in really serious trouble, smacks down his or her enemies, may or may not make some minor trouble for the player character group, and then conveniently goes away. That’s not much of a “curse”. That’s a really convenient power that overshadows everyone else in the group. There’s a reason why Etrigan and Naruto don’t usually hang out with crowds and are central characters rather than just being one of a team.

So… to build the actual mechanics, what we need is a set of boosts that enhance the characters existing abilities, rather than acting as an independent entity and are specialized or corrupted to involve some – but not too much – loss of control. That will make the “imprisoned monster” abilities useful/effective throughout the character’s career while avoiding overshadowing everyone else too much. The “terrible imprisoned being” backstory is fine, but in game terms it’s just a special effect. It’s the mechanics that actually matter when it comes to character-building.

Fortunately, Eclipse already has some mechanisms for just that effect. What we want here is Berserker, possibly with some Innate Enchantments that only function while berserk.

Berserker with Odinpower and Enduring, Specialized for Double Effect (+12 Str, +12 Con, +6/- DR, -3 AC)/the character transforms into a more monstrous form and loses control, this dubious ability activates automatically when the character is severely injured, their normal mind is suppressed, or when the GM thinks it ought to. While the character can usually refrain from hurting friends too badly, and from outright massacring NPC’s, severe injuries, destroyed goods, structural damage, and general trouble are the order of the day. In effect, the character has a potent (but not insurmountable) “save my ass!” card in reserve – but playing it is going to be expensive (12 CP).

• Hellish Vitality: Rugged Metabolism package, including Fast Healing I – for 18 Rounds – 2/Day, Relieve Illness 1/Day, Relieve Poison 1/Day, and Lesser Restoration 1/Day. (1400 GP). While putting in unlimited healing would be a mess, restricting things to uses per day (x.2 x number of daily uses up to four) brings down the cost nicely.

• Immortal Vigor I: Provides two bonus six sided hit dice, which are treated as having rolled sixes. (1400 GP)

• Infernal Ward: Shield (2000 GP). One of the few spells that starts off as personal-only, and so isn’t eligible for that price break.

• Rending Talons: Claws. Provides 1d8 Natural Weapons. May make a full attack using both at normal BAB. Also, +4 BAB with Claws (2800 GP).

• Speed of Night: Personal Haste. Provides a +30 Enhancement Bonus to movement and +1 Bonus Attack at full BAB when making a full attack (1400 GP).

Now, with a net cost of 21 CP, that’s a not-unreasonable expensive package. In fact, a baseline d20 human only costs 9 CP (gaining one Bonus Feat for 6 CP and Fast Learner Specialized in Skills for half cost for 3 CP) – and the allowance for a +0 ECL species is 31 CP. That means that, if the GM is generous, you can just call your race “Demon-Infused Human” – at a net cost of 30 CP – and have done with it. That has the advantage that – if you ever manage to get rid of your personal demon – you won’t have to rebuild your character particularly. You just drop back to the baseline human.

So lets create a preliminary build for…

Lerona Vendrith

Fourteen-Year-Old Demon-Bound Human (+0 ECL).

This probably won’t bear too much resemblance to the final build; the actual information that the prospective player provided for this is only about half a paragraph, and contained few details on the characters actual abilities – but that doesn’t really matter in an example.

Basic Attributes: Str 16, Dex 14, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 14, and Chr 12 (The GM is using a rather generous attribute array there. I think I’ll also assume that a part of that strength is of supernatural origin; it’s a bit hard to credit in a kid otherwise).

Available Character Points: 48 (Level One Base) +10 (Disadvantages) +2 (Duties) + 18 (Human Bonus Feat and Level -1 and 1 Bonus Feats. Yes, the GM is being generous again there, and Eclipse levels start off in infancy at -2) = 78 CP.

+5 Skill Points (5 CP). That gives her 5 SP (Purchased) + 12 (Fast Learner, 3/level, x4 at L1) +4 (Int at L1) = 21 SP. Eight of those will go to maximizing her Adept skills, leaving her 13 SP to spend – enough to maximize another three skills with one point left over to dabble in something – perhaps picking up another language.

From what little I’ve got in the way of backstory, Lerona was being raised as a cloistered priestess to help keep the beast within her under control – although she hadn’t actually learned much of anything in the way of priestly powers. She was kind of upset at the prospect of spending her entire life basically stuck in a cell for something that wasn’t at all her fault – and so she ran away. Ergo, Theology is one of her stronger skills.

This character is an extremely dangerous combatant when the beast comes out – but the beast is actually pretty vulnerable; a simple Hold Person, or (at least at the moment) even a Sleep spell will take out the beast very neatly. The base character may want to pick up some spell resistance and other special defenses later on; after all, when the beast does come out, the character has just become a high-priority target.

Today it’s a request for a mildly unusual Eclipse d20 writeup – a Wood Elf Spiritualist / Necromancer who DOESN’T dabble in negative energy, and thus is free to be a gray – or heroic – figure.

This isn’t really likely to be the version the player finally uses – the backstory is severely abridged and modified to fit a more generic d20 universe, the powers are based on the initial request and will doubtless be modified with more feedback, and so on – but character requests always become examples on the site, and the final version doesn’t much matter when it comes to an example.

Elves often take a very animistic view of things. The world, after all, is full of spirits – nature spirits, elemental spirits, sky spirits, city spirits, spirits of light and darkness, powerful ancestor spirits, sainted spirits who reach down from the higher afterlives to intervene, spirits anchored to relics from their lives, and the confused and lingering spirits of the recently dead. The gods… are distant and powerful, mighty beings who rarely speak to anyone save for their priests – who pay for their privileges and mighty powers with lifelong dedication and service.

The spirits of the material world are near at hand. Dryads and nereids and sylphs fill the woods, waters, and air, jinn haunt the deserts, spirits of thunder ride the winds of storms, and the spirits of the hearth warm their hands at the fires of every cottage. They are less mighty than the gods by far – but they are numerous, close, and inclined to answer when called upon, even if their would-be “priest” isn’t especially dedicated. Sadly most people – and even most elves – lack the talent to communicate with them.

Those who have that talent are Speakers and Shamans – and for every full shaman with a full suite of spiritual powers and the ability to call on spirits of any type there are many Speakers with far more limited talents. There are tree-speakers, fire-speakers, weather-mongers, sky-callers, earth-binders, and a hundred more minor variants.

Most such variants are quite respectable. There is nothing wrong with being a flame-speaker, especially in the dead of winter – or when your village is under attack. People may be more leery of a fire-speaker (especially of one known for poor self-control) than of a specialist who speaks with field-spirits – but that’s simply sensible caution.

Other specialties are less welcomed. In fact, some are barely tolerated at best.

Death-speakers are not popular. They often wind up as outcasts or footloose adventurers once the nature of their talents – or intentionally-developed specialty – becomes apparent. They are often, and unjustly, associated with Necromancers, despite the fact that their powers have nothing at all to do with negative energy or the undead. Deathspeakers deal with lingering spirits, call upon the dead who are still tied to the material world through various relics of the ir lives, and taps into the lingering traces of positive energy and spiritual essence found in the environment and the bodies of the dead – a more subtle power than the usual Necromantic ability to blast people with vast bolts of negative energy and raise swarms of undead horrors.

Speakers all have an innate ability to manipulate spiritual energy; they can detect spirits and spiritual energies, communicate with spirits, and channel spiritual power – their own and any ambient power which happens to be about – and use it for a modest selection of tricks. Specialists tend to be a bit stronger, but are limited to tricks related to the type of spirit involved – leaving them weak and limited compared to major spellcasters. On the other hand, the basics of their power are mostly inborn – leaving them plenty of time to develop other abilities. They need constitution, to help support and channel the energies they tap, and charisma to talk the spirits they call upon into helping them out.

Like many other varieties of relatively subtle, highly-limited, and low-upper-limit magic in the game, Deathspeakers are most readily represented by the Witchcraft system – which offers a variety of cheap and efficient, if relatively low-powered, abilities. That way they can be fairly formidable to start with, their power is low-cost and intuitive enough to be effectively described as a talent, and they can start off with access to many of their signature abilities.

Tanelis Moorinsanti (Tanelis “of the deathly fields”).

Outcast Wood Elf Deathspeaker

Wood Elf Racial Package (+0 ECL version, with the game using the Half-Price rule on buying up attributes):

Self-Development: +2 Strength, +2 Dexterity (12 CP).

Immunity/Sleep Effects (Uncommon / Minor / Major, 3 CP)

Occult Sense / Low-Light Vision (6 CP)

Proficiency with Elven Cultural Weapons (A narrow group, 3 CP)

+2 on Listen, Search, and Spot (6 CP) [If using standard skills]

+2 on Athletics, Perception, and Survival (6 CP) [Using the homebrew skills for this game]

Hit Points: 12 (L1d12, 8 CP) +3 (Con Mod) = 15. His next few hit dice will probably be a good deal smaller, but starting out with a good-sized die is always useful.

BAB +0 (0 CP)

Saves:

Fortitude: +2 (Purchased, 6 CP) +3 (Con) = +5

Reflex: +0 (Purchased) +3 (Dex) = +3

Will: +2 (Purchased. 6 CP) +2 (Wis) = +2

Proficient with Light Armor (3 CP) and all Simple Weapons (3 CP).

At the moment, Tanelis is using Leather Armor (for a net AC of 16 derived from 10 base, +3 Dex, +2 Armor, +1 Parrying Dagger), a Longbow (+3/1d6+2), a Longsword (+2/1d8+2), and that Parrying Dagger (no effective attacks until he learns an appropriate martial art). Given that he can’t afford all that much else at level one, it can reasonably be assumed that he has a light pack, his weapons, food, water, bedroll, some rope, and a few common implements and objects.

Special Abilities:

Deathspeaker Spiritual Manipulation Package:

Witchcraft III, with two pacts: Missions (must undertake various services for the dead to help bring them to rest) and Backlash (His power draws on his own life force, and can rapidly fatigue, exhaust, or even injure him if he overuses it by entirely draining his power or by attempting to sustain too many effects long-term). (Effective net total = 6 CP).

Witchcraft III provides (Str + Dex + Con)/3 (for him, 15) Power and seven basic witchcraft abilities to work with, with a save DC of 16 (Will). In his case, those include:

Dreamfaring, Specialized for Enhanced Effect; he can detect and communicate with spirits in the area, sense spiritual energies (an ill-defined category, which is basically whatever the game master thinks it should be – making this ability potentially either extremely useful or virtually worthless), including spiritual links (for example, a corpses bones, or a greatly valued personal item, can often serve as a link to a spirit in the afterworlds) – but he cannot use the standard dream entry or astral projection aspects of this power. Unfortunately, this ability does not, in itself, extend to the Undead (beings powered by negative energy).

The Hand of Shadows, Specialized and Corrupted/only to “cast spells” which manifest as re-animating corpses or as semi-uncontrollable poltergeist effects (both at L3 for 2 power). Fresh corpses may retain some skills; older ones generally do not. In general, these can be treated as zombies – but they don’t last all that long, involve no negative energy (and so are morally neutral and impervious to “turning”, however disgusting and disquieting most people find them), and fairly often retain some vestiges of personality. Unfortunately, most corpses only retain very small amounts of life force to use – so they cease to be animated in a day or so at most. Trying to extend the duration usually requires investing a hit point or two in each corpse – and is one of the best ways to invoke the “Backlash” pact/limitation noted above. Thus this ability, while potent for a low-level ability, only really works when fresh corpses are available.

Glamour and the Inner Eye: Specialized and Corrupted for Triple Effect; these two powers are only usable for basic communications, and only with spirits – but within that field the ability has no power cost. In the immediate area this overlaps with the Dreamfaring ability – but using purely mental communications allows him to communicate over spiritual links, extending his reach into the various afterlives. It still doesn’t extend to the undead though, since they are immune to mind-affecting abilities.

Personally I’d continue with…

Healing: This is the standard Witchcraft ability with no modifiers. By concentrating small amounts of ambient life force and his own energies into a living target’s body he can provide small amounts of healing – albeit nothing like the quantities available to healing specialists and at a fair power cost.

And…

Hyloka: The standard witchcraft ability. By manipulating his own life force, and tapping into ambient energies, he can shift the balance of biophysical processes in a variety of minor ways.

Since both of those are quite useful and fit in with the ability to channel and manipulate small amounts of life force. On the other hand, if you don’t want your Deathspeaker to have any powers over living creatures at all, they’re inappropriate. Ergo substitute:

Elfshot, Specialized and Corrupted for triple effect/only works against disembodied spirits and the undead. Using this power allows Tanelis to disrupt spirits and the undead in a variety of ways, causing modest amounts of damage and inflicting various hindrances,

Witchsight, Specialized and Corrupted for Triple Effect (no cost)/Tanelis can detect oncoming death, the progress of illnesses, and the bodies of the recently dead. In game terms, he can track the hit points of everyone in the immediate vicinity, tell at a glance if someone who’s sick will survive the night, and so on.

That leaves one power to select. In this case, we’re going to take three and specialize and corrupt them so that each only counts as one-third of a power. That’s a mildly unusual approach – but this is a mildly unusual character.

Shadowweave, Specialized and Corrupted/only counts as one-third of a power; can only be used to create basic spooky effects – drifting ghost-lights, spectral glows, and vague translucent apparitions.

Witchfire, Specialized and Corrupted/only counts as one-third of a power; can only be used to create basic spooky effects – such as odd breezes, chilly spots, and unaccountably snuffed-out (and cold) candles and lanterns.

The Adamant Will, Specialized and Corrupted/only counts as one-third of a power, can only be used against the powers of spirits and the undead, one-third cost. This allows him to easily withstand the mind-influencing powers of spirits and the undead – at least until his strength runs out.

Advanced Witchcraft Abilities:

“Familiar” (the Witchcraft-based access-route to the “Companion” ability) x2 (12 CP) – Two Animals (Large Dogs) using the Mystic Companion Progression, and with a Ghostly Template (as neutral ethereal spirits, rather than negative-energy undead, 6 CP) that will only become available after they die. Tanelis has raised his dogs from small puppies, and would be as reluctant to see them go as they would be to go – and, being a Deathspeaker, has unconsciously arranged to prevent that. When they do die, their spirits will continue to hang around. Until then they’re big, wolfish, mutts. Until then, each of them does at least provide him with +6 Power – raising his reserves quite significantly.

Path of Fire/Leaping Fire (6 CP). Tanelis can burn some of his life energy (power) to move faster in an emergency – boosting his own muscles and nerves in the same way that he enhances those of his “zombies”. It’s come in handy when he needs to run away from some upset townsfolk more than once.

Alternatively, you could just take Celerity (for 6 CP) and boost your movement rate. That’s a lot less flexible, and somewhat less powerful – but it doesn’t cost Power and is “on” all the time, which IS a significant advantage and – once again – stays away from the ability to .

Voice of the Dead (6 CP). This ability allows the user to communicate with, and use social skills on, the undead. While the negative energy they’re infused with has nothing to do with him, the remaining memories of life in most sapient undead are enough to let a Deathspeaker try to negotiate with them – even if they’re not enough to actually control them. Without this ability our Deathspeaker can communicate with the dead, and disembodied spirits, and spirits in the afterlife – but not with the unded. With this, not only can he communicate with the undead, but they start off with a neutral attitude towards him.

Other Abilities:

Fast Learner, Specialized in Skills for Double Effect (6 CP). This provides +2 SP/Level. I’ll presume that it was taken with disadvantage points pretty much at birth, for +8 SP at level one.

Adept/Four skills of choice can be purchased for half cost (6 CP). For this game, that’s going to be Athletics, Perception, Persuasion, and Survival.

+4 Skill Points (4 CP).

Total: 72 CP.

Skills Points = 4 (Purchased) +4 (Int Mod x 4) +8 (Fast Learner) = 16

Athletics +4 (2 SP*) +2 (Str) +2 (Race) = +8

Perception +4 (2 SP*) +2 (Wis) +2 (Race) = +8

Persuasion +4 (2 SP*) +3 (Cha) = +7

Survival +4 (2 SP*) + +2 (Wis) +2 (Race) = +8

That leaves eight skill points to spend – enough for another pair of maxed-out skills. I’m going to leave those available pending further information on the setting and character.

Most of the things the character will want to buy later on relate to his witchcraft of course: some items to round out his spiritual powers include:

Path of Coven Master/Summoning , Specialized and Corrupted/only to call up the spirits of the dead and only works when said spirit is either hanging around an area or the user possesses an appropriate link to it – usually a portion of their body or relic of their life, although (if a spirit is especially desperate) their true name will sometimes do (2 CP). This will allow him to hold seances, summon forth vengeful spirits, seek the aid of saints, and otherwise consult the dead.

Path of Spirits/Seize the Wandering Soul (6 CP): This dangerous power allows the user to capture wandering souls for a time – possibly killing their bodies in the process. It is wise to remember that many gods take SERIOUS exception to anyone seizing the souls of their followers.

Path of Spirits/Spirit Binding (6 CP): This powerful – and risky – ability allows the user to bind souls captured via Seize the Wandering Soul into areas, objects, and non-sapient bodies. And yes, that does mean that you can effectively reincarnate people.

Path of Spirits/ Hag-Riding (6 CP): This ability allows the user to drain power from bound souls and use it for his or her own purposes.

Path of Spirits/Ridden by the Loa with Equal Control, Corrupted/only Spirits of the Dead (8 CP): This ability allows the user to invite the spirits of the dead to share control of his or her body – and to imbue him with some of the abilities the visiting spirit held in life. Thus channeling the spirit of a noble warrior could considerably boost the user’s combat abilities.

Privilege/Blessing of the Ancestors (3 CP): This is a ritual invocation of the ancestors, asking them to watch over something. This lasts for at least a year, and often permanently – but is too subtle for game mechanics. Thus a fallen candle may quietly snuff itself out rather then starting a fire in a blessed house. Fields yield more, suffering less from pests and weather. Children are healthier, have fewer and milder accidents – and are far more likely to reach adulthood. Farm animals have more offspring, spinning thread snags less often, and artists are more inspired. The scale of the ritual required depends on the scale of the blessing sought; kids only take a minute, a city might take a three-day festival honoring the relevant Ancestors.

The Path of Air/Breath of Life (6 CP): Allows the user to temporarily breathe life into inanimate objects.

The prospective Player has suggested Path of Spirits/Siphon (6 CP) – an ability which allows him to bargain with spirits for on-demand access to some of their powers. That’s doable of course, but it isn’t one of the prime choices in my view simply because the spirits of the dead don’t usually have that many as-needed powers to draw upon. Still, if the character later expands his reach to start drawing on other kinds of sprits, this will become a great deal more effective.

Finally, of course, the character will want to build up his Power reserves a bit. The easiest way to do that is to take Mana using the Power option – adding 3d6 to the user’s Power reserve for (6 CP).

As always, characters built using Witchcraft have some very interesting options and can be quite formidable at lower levels – but, while Witchcraft will continue to be a useful talent at higher levels, it simply doesn’t scale well and offers relatively little offensive punch at any level. On the other hand, those powers will be extremely convenient in mystery scenarios and offer some useful party support – as well as an endless series of plot hooks. We’re looking at a d20 universe full of monsters and disasters and spells here. There will be enough spirits floating around with unfinished business to keep a thousand characters endlessly busy. That’s well worth putting up with a party that has some extra minions along.

Are there alternative builds? Of course there are. It’s just that most of them will be rather more expensive and will have to push off many of the abilities until later – although their upper limits will be considerably higher. Witchcraft is intentionally designed to give low-level characters cheap access to an array of interesting, heroic-level powers and to top out there. You won’t ever see a Witch blasting cities with gates to the elemental planes or summoning up mighty demonic armies – but you won’t see them with nothing much to do today but throw Magic Missile a couple of times either.

For example, lets say we wanted to build this character with Thaumaturgy.

According to his backstory…

Tanelis discovered his talents as a Death-Speaker as a child when he accidentally reanimated a recently deceased pet. That didn’t work out well of course – it was still dead, and decaying, and spiritless, and it didn’t last for long – but it left Tanelis with a fascination for playing with the forces of life and death that was regarded as, at the least, unhealthy.

The elders tried to steer him into more appropriate fields, but Tanelis kept practicing Death-speaking in secret. Youthful rebelliousness, and the fact that it was simply how his talents ran, made sure of that For him it was like just like playing in the mud and getting a bit dirty, plain and simple. His ability was entirely neutral, there was nothing sinister about it!

He somehow made it to young adulthood with his secret intact – despite his near-total inability to use other forms of magic. Unfortunately, an orc attack put an end to that. With his friends and family losing, Tanelis fell back on his well-practiced ability to re-animate the dead to call up reinforcements.

The sudden influx of quasi-zombies to the field turned the tide – but Tanelis flattened himself with the strain – and the village elders did not take kindly to being defied and weren’t too clear on the difference between necromancy and Deathspeaking in any case. He was presented with a choice; forswearing Deathspeaking or exile.

Tanelis knew that he couldn’t honestly forswear Deathspeaking. It was a part of who he was – and if he saw his friends in danger again, he’d surely use it again no matter what he swore.

Since then, he’s been wandering around as an adventurer, trying hard not to be too bitter about his fate and the village elders irrationality. Still, it’s all in the past; the future is what matters.

OK: So he was capable of animating corpses as a child. As a young adult, he was capable of animating a swarm of them.

That’s a fifth or sixth level effect. Doing it at level one with Thaumaturgy calls for… A DC 25 check, 12 Power and 6 Spell Levels. To get that to work we’ll need to buy…

Mana as 4d6 (14) Power, Specialized/only for use with Necromantic Thaumaturgy (4 CP).

Now that’s 18 CP – the same as we’d save by dumping the Basic Witchcraft and Voice of the Dead abilities. The hounds can stay the same, simply taking the Companion ability directly – but this version will also call for a bunch of skill points. At least five, and probably ten or more.

We can squeeze that into a level zero child-character, although they won’t be capable of much of anything else. Scraping up the skill points will, however, require a high intelligence and most of the character’s remaining points; other abilities will simply have to wait for higher levels.

On the upside, at high levels, this version of the character will be capable of massively powerful necromantic effects. Still, that doesn’t really fit in with the requested theme – which is why Witchcraft was selected to begin with.

Eclipse and Eclipse II are available in a number of ways:

There’s the Freeware Edition at RPGnow or Box.Net. It’s complete, but – if you like it – it would be nice if you helped support the system by spending ten dollars to pick up the full package, which includes Eclipse, Eclipse II, the Web Expansion, and will be updated with Eclipse III when I get time to finish that up (a notification to download the package again will be sent out). There’s a review up which also briefly covers Eclipse II Here.

In print-on-demand we have the Softcover (30$), the Hardcover (35$), and the “Direct” softcover edition (24$) which uses a cheaper set of printing options to lower the price. Unfortunately, the cheap options are only available for printing in North America – so for anywhere else, the original versions are probably cheaper anyway.

Eclipse II normally comes with the Eclipse download package – but you can download the PDF on it’s own for five dollars here or buy it in Hardcover (32$) or – once again – in that cheaper North America only Softcover Edition.

By request there’s also the Combined Edition – Eclipse I and II – making sure that you have the complete system, and plenty of examples, in one volume. It’s available in Softcover (36$) and Hardcover (45$). Those are expensive but are, of course, notably cheaper than buying the books independently. Of course, only one person can use it at a time instead of two.

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Welcome to my roleplaying blog! The Emergence Campaign Weblog exists to easily distribute material for my players, in support of Eclipse: The Codex Persona and other Distant Horizons Games products, and to provide a home for my role-playing material - along with occasional player contributions - in general. Queries and special requests are welcome.

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